


We'll Take A Cup O' Kindness Yet

by nwspaprtaxis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Christmas, Crying Dean, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exhaustion, Gen, Hallucinations, HoodieTimePrompt, Hugs, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Injury, It's a Wonderful Life, Protective Sam Winchester, Season/Series 07, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 23:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwspaprtaxis/pseuds/nwspaprtaxis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dean is George Bailey and Sam is Sam and there's bridges and their lives are very much not-wonderful, but they have each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll Take A Cup O' Kindness Yet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [i_speak_tongue](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=i_speak_tongue).



> **_A/N:_** This is my fill for **i_speak_tongue** ’s [prompt](http://hoodie-time.livejournal.com/523649.html?thread=6314881#t6314881) at **hoodie_time** 's [a Winter/Holiday themed Dean-focused h/c comment-fic meme (themed comment-fic meme #3)](http://hoodie-time.livejournal.com/523649.html) which went thusly: _Season 7, Dean catches It's a Wonderful Life on TV and it basically destroys him. Because his Clarence is gone, and it is most definitely not a wonderful life, and he should start looking for that bridge about now... And then there are hugs from Sam. The end_. I hope this one fills the bill. Sorry it's taken me so long to post this!
> 
> Occurs after _7x10 DEATH'S DOOR_ , but before _7x11 ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING_ (I wrote the brunt of this during the winter hiatus...), so AU after 7x10 with general spoilers for S7 up until that point.
> 
> Special thanks to: **[Enkidu07](http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1405279/Enkidu07)** for being awesome and beta'ing.
> 
>  ** _Disclaimer:_** Do not own. Am not making a profit. Just simply having fun with their psyches and returning them slightly more battered to Kripke and Co. and all that Yada Yada.

Sam slips into the motel room, carrying the greasy paper take-out bag and small grocery bag. He can feel the bottle of whiskey bumping up against the soft half-gallon cardboard carton of eggnog. His footsteps are heavy, weary, and he uses his back to shut the door. He slumps up against it for a moment, allowing the steel door to absorb his weight, to prop him up.

The room is cold and dark; the only light is the flickering of some black-and-white movie on the television.

 _Huh_. _Christmas Eve_. He hadn’t realized it was tonight — he’d known it was soon, but for it to be the night before… Then again, it’s not like they’d had reason to celebrate. He swallows and refuses to give in to the desire to curl up and die. His heart aches. He didn’t think he had the ability to do that anymore. For a fleeting, terrible, moment he wishes that he was still soulless — at least he wouldn’t feel like the knot of flesh in the center of his chest is being ground by a meat processor and spat out. He remembers vaguely the conversation he and Dean had not too long after Dean was abducted by Tinker Bell: _to suffer is the only game in town_. And damn if that wasn’t the truth.

“Dean?” He calls out over the white noise of the film.

There is no answer. He sets his goods on the table, switching on the dim yellowish lamp, and notices his brother’s coat is still draped over the back of one chair and he feels a moment of relief wash over him as he recalls seeing their latest ride out in the parking lot.

Sam makes a sweep of the room, even scoping out the bathroom, and there’s no sign of Dean. He huffs, wondering why he even bothered — Dean’d be getting smashed at the bar, chasing shots of whiskeys and tequilas with bottles of beer in some kind of homage to their late surrogate father.

Then his eyes land on the television. There’s a bunch of people singing Auld Lang Syne and there’s Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart holding some light-haired child, happily smiling and he stares at it blankly. Then it sinks in — _It’s a Wonderful Life_.

He makes a disgusted noise and shuts off the set.

He flops on the bed and the climax of the movie worms its way into his brain — a man, at the end of his rope, standing at the railing of a bridge, contemplating suicide when an angel in a…

 _Fuck_.

He’s off the bed in a second, cell phone pressed to his ear, mentally begging his brother to pick up while scrambling out the door, barely remembering to pull it shut behind him.

The phone rings and rings and rings and defaults to voicemail.

 _Fuck_. _Fuck_. _Fuck_. _Fuck_.

Blindly, he presses redial as he bursts into the tiny office. “I need a map of all the bridges in the area,” he snaps at the startled girl wearing a festive green-and-red elf-hat, still listening to the incessant ringing. He jams the phone between his ear and his shoulder and snatches the paper out of the girl’s hands and he’s relieved that there’s only one main bridge in the town. It seems to be over a freeway, not over water. There’s a smaller one crossing a stream. “Thanks,” he mouths at her before scrambling out the door.

He cuts off the ringing and he punches some buttons, connecting to Dean’s GPS, grateful he’d turned it on when he’d found his own had been activated. _Quid Pro Quo_. His breath stutters and nearly stops when he sees the blinking dot over a tiny line at the edge of his screen.

It crosses a thicker blue stripe.

Sam floors the accelerator, keeping one eye on the fixed, blinking target on his cell phone display, the ringing still going, amplified by the speaker phone. He refuses to think of the alternatives.

That maybe Dean had already jumped.

That maybe he discarded his phone somewhere to throw off his trail.

He roars across the bridge and a slumped figure flashes past, lit briefly by the glare of the headlights. It’s a glimpse of green and denim, too fast to be sure.

Sam slams both feet onto the brakes and the car fishtails before skidding to a dead halt on the side of the road.

He’s out of the car and sprinting back, not bothering to take the seconds to cut the engine or slam the door, the door-alert alarm beeping angrily behind him. In the glow of the taillights, he sees the figure is Dean.

“Why the fuck would you do that?” Sam yells, grabbing his brother by the shoulders and jerking him away from the metal railing, simultaneously twisting Dean around to face him.

Dean’s hunched up on himself as much as he can with the fiberglass neck brace holding him immobile, not making eye contact.

Sam digs his fingers more deeply into Dean’s biceps. He wants to smack and hug his dumbass sibling in equal measures. He settles for a hard shake. “What the hell were you thinking?” his voice crackles wetly beneath the anger, his breath billowing out in front of his mouth in a dense cloud.

Dean doesn’t answer, settling for dropping his gaze, all movement hampered by the brace, his ears bright and cold and it’s then Sam sees his face is puffy and splotched beneath the streetlights.

Soggy, fat flakes of snow drift down, thicker and harder.

“Wasn’t gonna jump,” Dean says softly, the words running together so it sounds more like _wazzntonnaump_ , and Sam notices that he’s shivering beneath his hands, wearing nothing but his Carhartt shirt against the elements. The shoulders are soaked through in wide, wet, patches and snow is beginning to accumulate in his hair. “I didn’t want to know for sure.”

Sam deflates, his rage and panic dissipating. “Know what?”

Dean shrugs the best he can, the motion hampered by the vice grip Sam’s still got on his arms and the neck brace. He keeps his gaze cast down and Sam leans back to catch his brother’s eyes.

“Know what?” Sam presses again. He glances up, sees Lucifer squatting on the railing, his bare feet not denting the snow and the cold doesn’t seem to bother him despite his thin layers. Sam immediately snaps his eyes back to his brother.

“I’m tired, Sam,” Dean says softly, deflecting a question and answering another all at once, and he looks up then, blinking as the snow catches in his eyelashes. His eyes are red-rimmed and shadowed. “I’m so tired. Everything hurts.”

And Sam feels like he’s heard those words before. Had it been five years ago? _Forty-five_? _One hundred and eighty-five_?

“I can’t do it anymore,” Dean continues and his voice is thick, choked. “I’m…” A suppressed sob escapes him and he’s swallows it down, shuddering all over before going rigid, a solitary tear falling from his eye. He doesn’t make another sound.

Sam pulls off his coat and tucks it around his brother’s shoulders, relieved when Dean slides his arms into the sleeves himself.

“It’s okay, I gotcha,” Sam whispers.

“What about…?”

“Don’t worry about it. He’s here but he’s quiet.” Sam glances up and catches Lucifer’s surprised expression, half obscured in the drifting snow. He deliberately looks away and feels Lucifer glaring at him. He exhales. “What d’you say we go get the Impala tomorrow?”

Dean starts in surprise, eyes widening for a split second before he turns away, pressing his blue lips together. He cranes his body, looking back. “But…”

“I was thinking about that. It’s time to switch cars anyway and I miss her too. What if we go get the Impala, draw out the Leviathans — all of them — and have a last stand on our own terms.”

Dean flexes his fingers before stuffing trembling hands into the pockets of the too-large coat. Sam doesn’t miss the movement and he knows his brother’s starting to become twitchy, jonesing for a drink, but he doesn’t call Dean on it.

“Yeah… yeah. I’d like that.” Dean extracts one hand, smears his palm down the length of his face and shoves it back into the pocket. When he looks up again, his eyes are brighter, less dead, and Sam swallows.

“Okay, good.” Sam lets out a sharp exhale and feels a smile tug at his lips. He slides his arm across his brother’s back, curling his hand around his brother’s deltoid and he can feel the raised, keloid handprint scar even through the layers. Dean leans into him and Sam accepts the additional weight easily, guiding them back to the car, following the black stripes his skidding tires left behind, their boots crunching through the old, accumulated snow. “What d’you say to heading back to the motel? We’ll make it in time for the _A Christmas Story_ marathon. The burgers’ll be cold but we could call out for pizza and I got stuff for eggnog…”

He hears Dean sniff and feels a shiver run through his brother’s frame. Dean steadies, locking up his muscles rigidly as he swipes the sleeve under his nose.

Then: “Yeah. Okay.”

When they reach the car, Dean balks and takes a step back, but Sam reaches past him, opens the passenger door, pulls out their remaining duffel, and slams the heavy door.

Sam nudges Dean with his shoulder and Dean presses up against him, a solid warmth counteracting the cold soaking through his layers, and, by unspoken agreement, they turn and begin retracing Dean’s steps, obscured now by snow, abandoning the car to the winter night, the dull red glow of blinking taillights streaking the ground at their feet, the insistent alarm still bleating weakly.

The snow lets up and falls harder all at the same time, turning finer and drier, but still coming down in fat flakes.

“Let’s go home.”


End file.
